Alexander Manilov
| Title = Level designer | Alias01 = Hobbit }}Alexander Manilov (Russian: Александр Манилов), or more commonly simply Alex, is the creator several Counter-Strike maps. He is known for his maps Office and Prodigy. Biography Originally born in Russia, Alex Manilov relocated to the United States at the age of 13. The first English-language book that Manilov asked his parents to buy was "How To Make Levels for DOOM". As Alex spoke very limited English at the time, he recalls possibly having to use a dictionary in order to read the book.Авторский Сайт Александра Манилова - Карты. Archived from the original on 2006-11-06. His first attempt at level design was for Doom II.Clan FiRE! - Hobbit Interview. Archived from the original on 2000-08-18. Eventually, Alex moved on to designing levels for the ''Quake'' series, which is how he got introduced to Worldcraft, and these were the first maps he published online. Manilov was introduced to Counter-Strike at a LAN party, where he became completely hooked to the game and started initial design work on Prodigy that very night. It would eventually see its release as part of ''Counter-Strike'' Beta 4.0. He would also design a second map, Office, which became part of the game in ''Counter-Strike'' Beta 7.0. When Counter-Strike was released at retail, Valve Software bought the rights to both these maps and made them part of the retail product. Alex was pretty stoked about earning money for the creation of these maps at the age of only 16. After his venture into Counter-Strike mapping, Alex would be employed for a short time by Valve Software as a contractual level designer for the creation of levels for Team Fortress 2. However, after a change in the development direction of the game, Manilov and the other contractual level designers were let go and his contributions toward the project were scrapped. When Gearbox Software took it upon them to develop Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, they decided to recruit prominent community level designers, including Alex Manilov, to help out in the creation of new maps.GameSpy.com - Preview: Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (PC). Archived from the original on 2001-12-13. Manilov started working for Gearbox contractually in June 2001,LinkedIn | Alexander Manilov and would contribute a total of two maps for their version of the game.Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Information Vault - Josh Jeffcoat Interview By the time Alex left Gearbox in December 2001, he was pretty pleased with the way both his maps had turned out. Both of the maps Manilov designed for Condition Zero would eventually get scrapped when development was overtaken by Ritual Entertainment. With much of his previous work getting scrapped, Manilov was left with a quite mixed impression of the gaming business as a whole and Alex has since lost interest in designing levels for games. He would stay in the United States until 2008, working for as an information manager at BT Americas. Later in 2008, he left the United States for studies at the International School of Management in Paris, France and obtained an MBA in 2009. Following these studies, Alex relocated back to Russia. Manilov was briefly considering the idea of returning to the gaming industry in 2009 by starting his own company,GameDev.ru - Вопросы по созданию стартап компании but this didn't happen. He has been working at various companies in tasks involving SAP implementation. As a hobby, Alex has also been involved in various film projects through the company Emerald Horse Productions.Emerald Horse Productions. Archived from the original on 2016-02-22. List of maps Official maps Custom maps Notes External links *Anarchy Design - Map design group that Manilov used to be part of Category:Counter-Strike Category:Level designer